


Cold Comforts

by thecountessolivia



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Coming up to Christmas, Domestic Fluff, Hannibal makes trashy food fancy, Ice Fishing, M/M, Post-Coital, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Scars, Smut, Smut Vignette, Will wakes up sore, Winter, jorges luis borges for some reason
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 03:33:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14347128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecountessolivia/pseuds/thecountessolivia
Summary: "Though they huddled together in every bed along the way, months had to pass before they kissed again. The kisses arrived softly, like false memories or ghosts from a mist, through the haze of painkillers and dampened with tears."This is a repost of "First Frost" and "Blackthorn", two deleted fics.





	1. First Frost

_"I reach my center,_  
_my algebra and my key, my mirror._  
_Soon I will know who I am."_

\- Borges

 

Will wakes with the dawn chorus. The cold snaps at his nose but the rest of him is toasty-warm under a tangle of covers.

The windows in the cabin are wide and low. Through them, Will sees the newly frost-crisped field sparkle beneath the feeble dawn.

They rarely draw the curtains - who needs them in this remoteness? - and so Will often wakes to the sight of the field. It spills wide from their porch, reaches for the tall pines at the edge of the wood and for the sandy shore of the lake that divides them from the sky. Sometimes crows or jays skip about in the grass. Once or twice, Will saw a deer meander past.

Through the haze of sleep, thoughts flicker on in Will's brain like little points of light. He wonders when the lake will be right for ice fishing - can't be long now. He registers, too, that Hannibal is still in bed behind him.

Will always wakes alone. Even while they were still recovering, dragging their battered limbs northward from lodging to lodging, Hannibal silently rose first. Will sometimes wondered if he spent the time communing with the tempered monster within, reining it in while Will slept. Yet the output of those solitary hours was and still is mundane: Will's days begin with fires lit; with hot, over-elaborate breakfasts; with coffee steaming. More recently, with a kiss.

Not today. The hard, naked furnace of Hannibal's body is unmistakably there, close but not touching. It radiates heat against Will's back, insistent like a grow lamp. Will can smell them, too, together. Faint sweat, the vetiver soap they share, the electrolytic trace musk of semen. Their cleanup last night had been perfunctory at best. They'd both fallen into the quick, ready sleep of two men spent.

To Will, Hannibal's unexpected presence in their bed now incriminates him beyond all doubt: last night wore him out. Will puts a smile into his pillow.

His ass aches. He reaches back with tentative fingers to feel about the soreness between his cheeks. It's not unpleasant and feels oddly familiar, the satisfying muscle ache of exertion, as after a long run. And then there's the spectral sensation that Hannibal is still inside, now and forever. The phantom limb feeling Will lived with in the years they spent apart, concentrated and made flesh.

It was a first. Of a sort. The path to it had been drawn out, to say the least. But now that it's happened, Will feels the satisfied inevitability of it everywhere. He's been fucked and that is that. The final sealed confession. The affirmation.

It's been over a year since the crushing cold of the Atlantic. Their first kiss was one of life, punctured with sobs and the retching up of brackish waters.

Though they huddled together in every bed along the way, whatever the accomodations, months had to pass before they kissed again. The kisses came softly, like false memories or ghosts from a mist, through the haze of painkillers and dampened with tears. Soon after Will was reaching back, under the cover of duvet and dark, for a helping hand. Hot puffs of Hannibal's breath against Will's nape, sharp canines everywhere, Will coming hard and far too readily in Hannibal's grip.

For a time things stayed that way. It wasn't sex as much as acts of desperate release for them both. Fast hands, hard mouths and silence afterwards. As if they were hacking a path through a thick forest towards something like tenderness.

When Will finally demanded it last night, Hannibal didn't spare him — had he ever? For the better part of an hour, Will whined and writhed on his back while Hannibal worked him open. It was a session, in the spirit of their earliest ones. In and out with two slicked fingers, a tide of stretch and strange sensation. Hannibal rationing pleasure to hold him on edge, Will clutching at Hannibal's wrist and snapping his hips up over and over for more. He never wanted it to end.

Above him, in the near-dark, Hannibal was a tower of undulating shadows and scarred, sweat-slicked muscle, lower teeth bared to a savage glint. And then Will was pulled on top. His mouth dragged moans through Hannibal's chest hair, his cock dripped pre-come onto Hannibal's cock, while from below two fingers turned to three and made him full. It felt so good, so hopelessly good, and Will fucked himself to the rhythm of Hannibal's harsh breath. He found Hannibal's free hand, wrapped his lips about more fingers and sucked. He thought: his hands both deep inside me, reaching for my heart.

In the end, he made the call. He pulled himself off. He reached for Hannibal's cock and sank himself completely down in a single push. They both gasped, groaned, clutched at each other blindly. Hannibal's hands came down hard and bruising onto Will's hips. He pulled Will up then down onto a thrust, then another and another and then it was over. Will's left thigh cramped with the force of his orgasm. Moments later he was down on the sheets like a rag doll, and Hannibal was on him, lapping at the sweat and come that ran streaking down Will's inner thighs. Will felt entirely aflame.

\---

He now rolls over slowly and folds his hands beneath his cheek. He stares and stares at all that catastrophic intensity, sequestered for now in sleep. Hannibal's face is half smothered in a pillow, half curtained by a silvered sweep of hair that Will wants to touch and brush back. When he does, Hannibal comes to at once.

"How are you feeling?"

Hannibal's voice is rough and his question is pointed. His lids hang heavy but his eyes are clear, wet drops of dark ink brightened to amber by the morning light.

"Good. I feel—" Will says and hesitates with the embarrassing truth of the word that crowds itself into his mouth. "Relieved. I feel relieved."

Hannibal smiles and Will leans in to smother with a kiss the smugness and understanding in that smile.

"I thought I'd make breakfast for a change," he says. His fingers are still skimming through Hannibal's soft hair, scraping down to the neck. He can't seem to stop touching and Hannibal is letting him, with the indulgent passivity of a large house cat.

"A reward for deviating from my morning routine? You shouldn't."

"Not sure about reward. You know what my cooking's like."

"Keep it simple then. Porridge with cream. Fig preserves. Honey." Will is still touching, still staring at the way the word honey shapes the curves of Hannibal's mouth.

"There's frost. I wanna check for ice on the lake later."

"Then we'll go out together. There are blackthorn trees along the shore and the berries improve with a freeze. You can help me pick them."

"Later."  
  
"After breakfast."

Will draws their bodies close, covers himself in their burning heat, presses himself to Hannibal's chest.

"Later," he murmurs and listens to the endless march of Hannibal's heart.


	2. Lunch

It's gentle, flat land for miles around them, all of it lying still now under a blanket of snow. Meanwhile Will's dreams have been coming at him like avalanches, the whole of his past - their past - tumbling down with a bloody roar from jagged peaks. He battles the bedding in the night, mistaking it for a slow, heavy burial.

It all turns to vapor when he wakes. Unlike the fevered horrors he once simmered in, the dreams come — then let him be. In his head, the past is making its last stand.

Days sail softly by. There are things to fix around the house and foods to preserve. Languages and strange old card games to learn. It bothers him sometimes, how little they unpick what's been. But then there's the future to think about.

Today he suits up, gathers his ice fishing gear and kisses Hannibal good-bye.

"Back when I've caught something. Or not."

"I'll start lunch when I see you are returning."

From the kitchen window, Hannibal will be able to see him from very far off, a dark dot on the smooth frozen lake. Will sees him too, the house a tiny beacon against the dark pines. Another Wolf Trap, steered by strange captains.

Will wonders if leaving this tether between them is a kindness. These days Hannibal struggles to have him out of sight.

Other kinds of tethers have been fraying of late, he thinks now, in his third catch-less hour on the ice. Between the memories of their monstrous courtship and what they've settled into there is nothing more than a thin thread of scars. The past feels huge, impossible - a dream. Will peers into the hole he's cut in the lake. Somewhere in the abyss, underneath the stillness that surrounds him, life teems and twitches.

By two in the afternoon he's cold, hungry and cross. The sun is already falling behind the trees, shadows stretching long fingers onto the ice. The smokehouse Will had spent the summer fixing up won't be getting any more fodder. He stomps back through the snow empty-handed.

\---  
  
"Hope you weren't counting on fish for lunch."  
  
"I had guessed the outcome by your stride. I'd made other plans."

Will peels off his coat and boots. The house wraps him in warmth and the smells coming from the kitchen make his head swim and mouth water: fruit caramelised in something alcoholic, browned butter and spice.

"Not even one lousy perch. I might go back out later while there's still light, reopen the hole."

"You are new to this. Perhaps a more traditional approach might yield better results?"

"You mean spear fishing? Not sure that's even legal in..."

He trails off into a twisted smile. Giving weight to the legal intricacies of angling regulation seems ridiculous in light of what Will is. Who he lives with.

Will drifts into the kitchen and loiters aimlessly about until Hannibal pauses whisking his eggs and turns to offer a kiss. Will slips his hands beneath his sweater to warm them. He feels Hannibal suppress a shiver. The heat of his skin is never anything but shocking, the byproduct of a monster's metabolism. Will remembers his first touch: dry, calming warmth broadcasting even through the swamp of Will's fever.

While Will fished, Hannibal had busied himself with decanting the sloes they'd picked a few weeks ago by the side of the lake. They'd sat for hours beside the fire and pricked each drupe one by one with thorns from the tree, before drowning them in sugar and alcohol. Will had brought home a few armfuls of blackthorn branches to dry for firewood.

The strained ruby-colored liquid now stands on the kitchen windowsill, poured into a plain crystal decanter. Hannibal's sweater is a heavy knit of pure white wool. For a flashing instant, Will's mind sees the sloe juice soaking through the immaculate yarns, seeping like blood into snow.

Hannibal draws him back gently by the wrists and nod-gestures to a filled cordial glass standing on the counter.

"Warm yourself up, please. Food will be ready in a few minutes."

Will picks up the glass and gives it a suspicious sniff. "Still not sure about this stuff. I knew frat boys that put it in their Alabama Slammers. They had terrible hangovers."

"As with most things, the right ingredients are key. Frost-matured berries and quality gin will make for quite a different experience. Try it."

Will had seen the gin Hannibal used for the recipe: sleek bottles of dark blue glass, labels in gold cursive. They'd looked like scaled up versions of expensive cologne. He tips half the glass back. The involuntary "ooh" sound gets pulled from him by the pleasant burn, the citrus notes of the alcohol and the deep, almost smokey plum taste of the sloes. Hannibal's eyes crease with pleasure.

"It will mellow further as the months go on. We'll add a few drops to our Kir Royal at Christmas, in lieu of crème de cassis."

They settle across from each other at the long bench that serves as their dining table. The centrepiece is another thin thread back to Baltimore days: bleached rabbit skulls Hannibal found on their forest walks, pomegranates and persimmons awaiting their fate, berry-studded holly, all arranged in a bowl of hollowed out wood.

"You... made pancakes? What is this stuff?" Will asks but doesn't wait for an answer before smothering a piece of something light and eggy in chilled whipped cream and what looks like plum jam. He wolfs it down while Hannibal watches from across the bench with barely concealed intensity. Feeding Will has never lost its appeal, whatever the menu.

"Keiserschmarm. A shredded pancake soufflé with raisins caramelised in rum, damson confiture to serve. A light meal first created for Franz Joseph I of Austria. Now a staple of Alpine taverns and Christmas markets."

"It's good. Didn't know Austrian emperors were into pancakes."

"As with most recipes this old, there are several stories of its origin, all contested. History blurs them all into legend."

Will has two more heaping mouthfuls, washes them down with the last of his gin. "Does it matter which version of the past we go with? Or do they all end up as lies anyway?"

Hannibal is silent for a moment, eyes cast down to the cutlery he's setting against the sides of his plate. He reaches out to brush fingertips over the knuckles of Will's hand, a light touch over the faint scars there.

"Perhaps it doesn't matter. In the end we all settle on whatever story makes the present moment most pleasant."

Will's fingers flex lightly under Hannibal's touch. He nods.  
  
"Yeah. Or more likely to endure."  
  
They clean up after their meal in silence. Outside, the snow picks up anew.


	3. Blackthorn

Two more gins after lunch see Will succumb to the couch, head slumped into Hannibal's lap. Music spills from the bookcase speakers, some symphony Hannibal is dissecting to inform his own compositions: a violin pursued by oboes, lost and pleading over a steady march of drums. Hannibal reads, fingers passing rhythmically through Will's hair. The fire burns bright, well fed with blackthorn. Sound, touch and warmth conspire against Will and he dozes.

He startles awake with a gentle tug on his shoulder. The music has stopped and the light has gone from the day - so much for going back out on the ice. Hannibal has maneuvered down beside him and they lie close, Will's face smothered in Hannibal's chest, a blanket drawn over them both. Tangled, lit by flames, the house cocooned in darkness. Will wonders if it's still snowing outside, or if the sky has given up on them too.

"Will," Hannibal's voice resonates low against his skull and Will is being drawn back by inches. "If you don't mind."

Will blinks back the haze of sleep and Hannibal's chest comes into focus. "Oh God, sorry. Sorry."

Even in the low light, his drool is an obvious wet stain on Hannibal's sweater. Will wipes at it uselessly and Hannibal's next exhale carries mirth.

"The next time I decide to act as your pillow, I will opt for a bib —"

"Shut up," Will mutters and stretches up to find a kiss.

He wants to work for one. Hannibal lets him, handing over a mouth that's soft and slack, even as his palm spreads over the base of Will's spine and presses there to tangle them tighter together. Will tracks his lips over Hannibal's, a cautious reconnaissance of curves, warmth and breath. Hannibal's mouth is a weapon, the best he owns, lethal with words and bite. Hannibal's kisses are a minefield that draw Will in with a magnetic pull. Will's tongue slides in, greedy and entitled, and is caught.

Streams of sighs and soft noises move between them. Their hips grind and shove. Will wrestles his tongue free from the hard suction of Hannibal's mouth and pulls it over the edge of his teeth, careful and slow as on a serrated blade. They give him away, Will thinks, those teeth of something wild: incisors of a child, canines of a beast. Will should have known all along.

They shift to align their hardening cocks and find a rough rhythm. It's not enough, the muffled friction, and Will struggles with the front of Hannibal's pants in the sliver of space between them. On his next frustrated huff, Hannibal hauls him upwards and Will is saddled into Hannibal's lap. He's panting now, lifting up just enough to wrangle with button, zipper and belt. He tugs at it all, demanding.

"Pull these down for me. Come on."

Against Will's throat, Hannibal mouths a yes. He lets go to free himself and with the hard slap of his cock against his stomach Will's galloping mind grinds to a halt. He stares down.

Before Hannibal's hands land on him again, Will catches them by the wrists.

"Stop."  
  
Hannibal blinks up slowly from nipping at Will's collarbone. Will watches him formulate a protest. "Will—"  
  
Will starts to pull away. "Wait here. Wait for me."

Hannibal gives a sole, uncertain nod. Still he grabs at the flesh of Will's sides, cliff edge tight, slipping fingers seeking grip. Will all but yanks himself free. He takes a staggered step back towards the fire and pauses to take in the sights. Hannibal's sweater rucked up over his stomach, pants shoved hurriedly down, eyes swimming in arousal and reflected flames below spilled fragments of fringe. Unmoored. A mess. It makes Will's cock strain in his jeans and some part of him wants to just stand there and jerk off, come fast and dirty all over Hannibal and complete the picture. He almost does.

"Don't move. Stay. Okay?"

Will goes to the bedroom, finds the lube and strips. He spreads out on the bed and takes a slow breath. And then he takes his time. Hannibal can wait.

He pinches his eyes shut and works two fingers deep into himself, thinking of Hannibal twenty strides away. Bared skin and flushed cheekbones and hard cock licked at by firelight. Exposed and alone. Expectant. Hannibal won't come after him. He'll stay where Will had put him. Will's breath shakes but his body eases. He slathers on more lube and takes three fingers to the hilt, keeps them there to force the stretch, chokes back needy noises in the back of his throat when his cock twitches and leaks.

Long minutes roll by before he's up again, the lube warm and thick between his cheeks. He pulls on a pair of woolen socks and throws on a flannel shirt. Ostensibly against the chill, but he keeps the shirt open, to better frame his hardon and scars. The look is crude, obvious and calculated, but then he's long suspected he's caught some of Hannibal's penchant for spectacle. On the way back he grabs a washcloth from the bathroom and catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He looks good, solid and real, as if desire had made his blood swell in volume to fill out a battered ghost of a man into the shape of something almost human.

Hannibal's where Will left him, gaze tracking Will's approach. His arm reaches out, but Will sways back, dodging touch. He stands close, just at bay, and starts to stroke himself with a loose fist. He watches Hannibal's eyes roam his body, wide and devouring but full of questions, too.

"You looked kind of lost when I walked off. You still do."  
  
Hannibal licks his lips and shifts against the cushions. "I prefer to have you close. It grounds me."

Slowly, one after the other, Will plants his feet into the couch, either side of Hannibal. He rises and stands looming over, tall and unsteady. His shadow covers Hannibal whole. He shrugs off his shirt and tosses it aside.

"Why do you need grounding?"  
  
Hannibal peers up at him and this time Will doesn't stop him when his hands fall onto Will's skin, thumbs smoothing over hipbones, palms sliding warm along Will's inner thighs. "I am... less sure of myself these days. Perhaps you changed me more than either of us had ever imagined."

"I know exactly how much I've changed you. Are you forgetting what you are, Hannibal? Do you need me to remind you?"

Will starts to sink down, but cannot help putting his cock to Hannibal's lips along the way, letting Hannibal have a fleeting, suckling kiss. And then he's down again, pressing hard and unyielding against Hannibal's lap, pinning Hannibal's cock between them, trapped in viscous heat. Hannibal's brow lands hard against Will's shoulder and he gives a shuddering groan.

"Will. God--"  
  
Will moves against him, a torturous slow slide, back and forth along the shaft. His thighs are a restraint of muscle. "Tell me."

Hannibal's fingertips climb hard and bruising along each vertebrae of Will's spine. Short, urgent breaths burn small fires along Will's throat.

"What I am is yours to keep. You are my keeper, Will."

"Your jailer, you mean."

"More than that. I find it difficult to imagine what I would be without you, now."

Will's hands grip Hannibal's skull, pulling him back to snap up nips and kisses from his jaw. He feels Hannibal struggle against the slickness, desperate, wanting in.

"It's a good thing I'm here then," Will murmurs and then lets it all go, every muscle slack, every limb loose and ready. His next kiss is tender and soft. "Go ahead. Show me."

And with that he's tackled, turned and pinned to the couch. Hannibal's teeth are on him at once, on shoulders and earlobes and back of his neck, full weight crushing him down, full length shoving past readied muscle and fucking in hard, relentless. What Will smothers in a pillow, between moans and cursing pleas for more, is something like sheer glee.


	4. Blindness

Will's been all over the place, tumbled, spread and turned. Face down on the couch, hands and knees on the rug by the fire, heels hooked over Hannibal's shoulders. Hannibal swept him up like an ocean and Will rode the waves until pleasure wrecked him on the shore and he came, thrashing and gasping, in Hannibal's mouth.

Somewhere along the way he was divested of his socks.

He's sprawled on the rug now, manhandled by Hannibal into optimal comfort: cleaned up, covered with a blanket, head propped up with a pillow. A contented rag doll in refractory paralysis. He's trying very hard not to fall asleep again. Moving toes and fingers appears possible, but his limbs feel like felled pines. Fire, wool and post-coital glow coat him with a cocktail of warmth that feels akin to sunshine. When Will closes his eyes, it's easy enough to imagine: the South American beaches they've talked about, the baking brightness of an endless sky that is waiting for them somewhere. "When we're truly mended and ready," Hannibal had said. Will had agreed, but the long hours of winter darkness help stoke the prospect of a move south into near- impatience. He sees it so clearly: tiled patios, potted citrus, jacaranda trees in bloom, sun-dried salted cod.

Hannibal has gotten dressed and departed for the kitchen. Will can see his silhouette moving gracefully through a variation of culinary choreography. When he returns and settles beside Will, cross-legged and back against the couch, he sets a small tray in his lap. Will cranes his neck up for a better look.

"Sloes salvaged from the gin and dipped in dark chocolate," Hannibal says and Will paws the tray at once. He has his hand gently slapped. "Please sit up if you'd like one. And mind the pits."

Will rolls his eyes, but obeys. Sitting up, his hip nudges a sharp object beneath the blanket: the leather-bound book Hannibal had been reading, a flung-off casualty of their fucking. Will picks it up.

"Still on the Borges?"

"Still. It won't be long until our plans coalesce into reality. The Spanish practice will prove useful."

Will smiles at the easy alignment of their thoughts. He pops a sloe in his mouth and slowly suckles at the chocolate. He thumbs through the book. He picks out the bits of Spanish text he can understand. Ha taps a page with one finger.

"This one, here. You've read this chapter more than the others."

"How perceptive of you."

"I've seen you stuck on this part before. And I know you're not a slow reader. Also—"

Will tilts the volume and looks up in search of Hannibal's eyes. A bookmark of pressed flowers slips from the pages, crimson anemones they'd found in the woods last summer.

Hannibal's gaze slides away to the fire and settles there at its most inscrutable. His hand has found Will's foot and his thumb circles rhythmically over Will's ankle bone.

"Do you recognise the title?"

Will frowns at the page. The words elude him. He shakes his head.

"It's an essay about the aging author's descent into blindness. A text both heroic and humble. It offers a personal account of Borges' optic decline and recounts artists of the past who, like him, lost their sight."

Will's fingers trace the words, as if touch might will them to rise from the paper and make themselves known. He feels blind to their meaning. He sees the elderly poet, withered hands passing over the spines of the books he'll never read again. Or for the first time. His throat tightens a bit.

"It must read like an elegy."

"On the contrary. It's surprisingly sober and uplifting. Borges opts to trade his sight for new intellectual adventures. He loses himself in language, uncovers entire new countries of poetry. His imagination thrives."

Will shifts to nestle against Hannibal's side and follows his gaze towards the flames. He flicks a sloe pit onto the pyre. He hugs the book to his chest.

"Because he has no choice."

Hannibal nods, fingers weaving into Will's hair, stroking there idly. "Sight or no sight, he cannot help being an artist. He carries on."

"And you think he's sincere? That he's not just written a whole bunch of prose to placate himself?"

Hannibal lets out a breath of laughter.

"How strange you should say so. I feared the same when I first read it."

Will watches light from the flames dance and dive into the sharp lines of Hannibal's profile.

"Feared. What did you have to fear?"

"I read it for the first time shortly after we met."

Will's mind begins to dawn with understanding, a slow illumination. He sets Hannibal's tray from his lap to the floor and inches closer, draws the blanket over them both.

"You thought such a cruel gift could never be anything but a curse. A destruction of the self."

Hannibal turns to him then, fingers slipping from Will's hair to curve over the back of his neck, caressing. Their lips draw in and Will's eyes slip closed, into darkness.

"How wrong I was," Hannibal murmurs, very close, and Will feels his warmth above all others. "Certainly there are many kinds of blindness."

Will shuts his eyes tighter, presses in for a kiss. It's all he can muster. The word, the secret and enormous word he thought impossible, hangs above them like the night sky. Will's heart pounds. After years of blood and knives, he wants to give it shape at last. Wants to tell Hannibal what they are: two blind men in search of new poetry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The Borges essay](https://reznick110.files.wordpress.com/2010/09/blindness.pdf)


	5. Bound

In the morning Hannibal will leave for three days. Will cannot sleep. More specifically he drifts off for a while, only to be snapped awake by an internal alarm clock that fibs: it's dawn, it's time.

By 4AM he's tried to fidget himself back to sleep four times, cautiously, so as not to disturb Hannibal. His body aches with the nausea of sleeplessness. It is then that Hannibal's voice comes to him through the dark, low and soft.

"Will."

Will twists two handfuls of bedsheets at his sides, prostrate and muscles forced still. He stares up into the blackness, woefully awake.

"Sorry. Not time to get up yet."  
  
"I know. You're wakeful. Will you let me help?"

Will turns his head to nod a desperate _yes please_ but sees next to nothing: only the barest outline of Hannibal's shape, like darkness condensed beside him. He reaches out blindly, guided by the proximity of warmth, and gropes and tugs until they are close. Then everything is feeling and texture: a wet mouth and the bristling scrape of a newly grown beard across Will's neck, chest, stomach. The silken slip of hair strands through Will's fingers where they've wrapped around Hannibal's skull. Palms swept broad and hot over Will's sides, settling over his hips.

Moments later his boxers are off with a brisk tug and his still soft cock is lifted and delivered in the cradle of Hannibal's fingers onto Hannibal's tongue. Will feels an inhale, a stretch of lips, and then he's taken whole — cock, balls — into Hannibal's mouth.

Will gasps and grips the sheets again. They both grow still. Seconds suspend themselves over the sea of eternity. Will's universe narrows to the sound of Hannibal's steady breath and the slow slide of tongue, now soft and flat, now hard and pointed, over his cock and balls. Tasting, examining. Relishing.

Will doesn't dare move or make a noise. I'm being savoured, he thinks, grateful for the pitch black that hides his spreading flush and something that resembles panic. A tender morsel. A single mouthful, like a songbird to the slaughter. Awaiting the fatal bite and gulp. The thought inflames his brain, fanning into an inferno when the darkness carries up to him the low sound of Hannibal's pleasure.

In the end, it is only seconds. When Hannibal pulls back and sinks over him again, Will is rock hard. He shoves himself up against relentless suction, moans and claws at Hannibal's shoulders and spends himself, minutes later, down Hannibal's throat.

Hannibal barely has a chance to resettle beside him, spooning close, before Will is fast asleep.

\---

They're both up with the dawn. They have their breakfast in silence: shakshuka spooned from a cast iron pan, sausage, thick slices of sourdough toasted in brown butter. Will keeps his eyes down and stuffs himself with more than his fill. He feels Hannibal's gaze on him with every bite.

Afterwards, he takes his coffee to the kitchen window and watches the day brighten through the bare trees. He wants to hide his surly expression and avoid the sight of Hannibal attending to his packing and last minute preparations. The house is largely open plan, so he hears Hannibal's gentle bustle instead. He tries to reason through his vile mood.

They had discussed this like sensible men, or semblances of such: if they were to make their move south in the Spring, then the time had come to make preparations. There were funds to transfer, passports to forge and discreet plane tickets to purchase. It was riskier to go together and, Will had to admit, the practicalities of criminality were Hannibal's core competency far more than his. He would take the motorcycle and leave Will the truck. He'd travel to the nearest large city and make all necessary arrangements. And then he'd be back.

Of course he'd be back, Will had told himself. He's wanted to break or kill something ever since. When Will turns, he finds Hannibal watching him. He is summoned to the kitchen with a nod.

"Now," Hannibal says, steering him to the refrigerator for a showcase of its contents. "The venison in red wine reduction will see you through today. After that, there's the beef bourguignon. Thirty minutes in a low oven should be sufficient to bring it to the correct temperature. The simplest potato dish will to do as accompaniment."

That means Hannibal believes Will capable of making mashed potatoes. And of course Hannibal had cooked enough for the entirety of his absence.

"Sounds good. You worried I was gonna spend the whole time you were gone eating Pop-Tarts or something?"

Hannibal gives him a flat look.

"Of course not. You enjoy my cooking and besides, we don't have any Pop-Tarts. Nor will we ever."

Will's sullen expression cracks at last into a smile. "I could just go to town and get some, you know."

Hannibal ignores him. "If you'd like something lighter for your lunch, the celeriac velouté will keep while I am gone. Please serve it with the dukkah. It's in a glass jar in the pantry."

Will has to be shown the jar and explained how to serve its contents with his soup. The next stop is the free-standing freezer. Hannibal rests the tips of his fingers over the lid. "Further provisions in the top compartment, should you need them," Hannibal pauses and Will looks up, wondering how far his expression had strayed to warrant the fixed look he's getting.

"I'd meant to ask. Is there anything you'd like me to bring back for you?"

Will startles at that: he'd been staring at Hannibal's hand resting over the freezer. It's still there, as poised as the question mark at the end of Hannibal's sentence.

Will should say no. An adamant no, for the sake of those who will come into Hannibal's path over the next three days and nights.

He shakes his head instead. He reels Hannibal in by the sleeve of his sweater until he's being held tight. He clings close.

"Whatever you want," Will murmurs, muffled against the crook of Hannibal's neck. "Your call."

\---

Hannibal brings his bag to the door and pulls on his new leather coat. It's dark brown, almost black, and he's paired it with a cashmere scarf the color of blood. He looks so good that something in Will's chest aches.

Over the past few months Hannibal had settled not so much into a disguise, but a brand new edition of a plausible human being: hair to match the short beard, both grown in gray; soft yet sturdy sweaters; practical lace-up boots suited to their walks in the woods. And still so elegant as to seem alien. Will keeps hope alive for the odd pair of jeans to make an appearance. So far he's been let down.

"Will you have enough to keep you occupied?"  
  
Will loiters near the door, fiddling with a sticky chain. He shrugs. "You're not my sole entertainment, Hannibal."  
  
"No. But the change in routine will be disruptive."  
  
"The belt on the dryer needs replacing. You left me your Borges. I'll be fine."  
  
Hannibal reaches out and brushes his knuckles along Will's cheek, caressing over scar tissue. "We've not been apart for an entire year, Will."  
  
There is something bordering on desperation in Hannibal's voice now and all Will wants is to dodge the implications of that truth on his psyche.  
  
"I'll just try not to think too much. You make sure you do the same."

With that lie, the rage bubbles up again. Will doesn't want to admit that he doesn't understand it, needs Hannibal to help him know it. He pulls the door open with too much force.

"Just... get on with it. Go, okay?"  
  
Hannibal swallows and nods.  
  
"Three days."  
  
Will can't look at him. He gestures aimlessly. "Yeah. Three days."

There is a kiss, finally: stolen, soft and brief. And then Hannibal is out on the porch, on the motorcycle, and gone.

The sound of the engine dissolves in the distance. Will listens to it with his fists and forehead pressed against the shut front door.


End file.
